Tag: Tracy Letts

Steven Spielberg’s The Post – a film about The Washington Post’s battle with the Nixon Administration over the publication of the Pentagon Papers – has two primary objectives. In the character of Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), the assertive editor once interpreted by Jason Robards, Spielberg seeks to examine journalism’s role in modern society (à la Spotlight). And in the character of Kay Graham (Meryl Streep), the publisher who steered the Post through the 70s, Spielberg also wants to depict the difficulties women face in male-dominated workplaces.

To be sure, the film’s treatment of both of these themes begins quite promisingly.

The initial premise of Azawal Jacobs’ The Lovers is that the two protagonists, a married couple named Michael (Tracy Letts) and Mary (Debra Winger), dislike each other so much that they’ve each resorted to cheating on the other. If you were just going by the opening scenes, however, you’d be hard-pressed to believe that either of them really enjoys being adulterous. On Michael’s side, after all, the movie gives us an image of his girlfriend Lucy (Melora Walters) wailing inconsolably, all while he resignedly leans his head against a wall in the background. And on Mary’s side, we watch as she gives her boyfriend Robert (Aidan Gillen) an awkward, somewhat exasperated embrace outside her workplace. Add the fact that these scenes are filmed with meditative long takes, and you have all the makings of a reincarnation of Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura: a story where everyone wants love but never succeeds in getting it.

First impressions, however, can deceive, and the turn the story subsequently takes shows why.